PwC pushes for more female partners

PwC WANTS half its partnership to be women or from an ethnic background said UK chairman Ian Powell.

Powell, who is also senior partner of the UK, said he wants to set an "aspirational goal" of between 40% to 50% of partners either coming form an ethnic background and/or being female over the next decade. Currently women make up about 13% of partners at PwC, The Telegraph reports.

"At the moment our partner proportion [female to male] is about 13% to 14% and we want to rebalance that," said Powell.

"We know that 50% of business start-ups are now by women or ethnic minorities.

"We have all that talent that is being lost to the business. There is a fantastic workforce not being utilised," he added.

Powell said the one of the biggest challenges was attracting women back to the workplace after a career break for children, and getting them to climb the corporate ladder once they did. However, this is something PwC wants to focus on in the future.

Currently around 20% of the staff, including men and women, work flexible hours.

Last year PwC partner Pam Jackson won the Women in the City award for her work with the mergers and acquisitions tax team.